Epilogue
Aweek later
"How much longer until we get there?"
Seth glanced into the rearview mirror. Layla stared back from the tiny patch of backseat still visible beneath what looked like the entire contents of the Adler ranch.
"Not long."
Josie turned her head slowly toward him. "You've said that the last four times she's asked."
"Because it is still true."
"How long is 'not long'?" Layla asked.
Seth considered it. "Less time than it took the last time you asked."
A dramatic sigh drifted up from the backseat. "That's not an answer."
Josie covered her mouth, unsuccessfully hiding a laugh, while Seth feigned a look of deep offense.
"It absolutely is."
"It absolutely isn't," Josie said.
"Thank you, Mommy."
"Traitor," Seth muttered.
Layla giggled. She looked ridiculous back there.
Her car seat wedged into the only space they'd managed to carve out between blankets, duffel bags, boxes of canned food, seed containers, cookware, medical supplies, and everything else Liz and Josie had decided couldn't be left behind.
A cowboy hat sat crooked on her head because she'd insisted it couldn't be crushed.
A winter coat stuffed beside her like an oversized pillow.
Somewhere beneath her feet sat a box labeled MOM'S KITCHEN, which Josie had refused to explain beyond warning Seth that if he broke anything inside it, she'd kill him herself.
Beast groaned under the weight, the suspension complaining with every rise in the road. In the side mirror, Liz's truck a steady presence, trailing them by a few lengths and pulling the second of the two horse trailers they'd wrestled into roadworthy shape through a long, desperate night.
The first trailer carried the living cargo: two horses, every last goat Liz owned, and all of the chickens. Every single one.
He couldn't believe they'd pulled it off.
He remembered suggesting they take only what was reasonable, and the look Liz had given him—like he'd offered to leave Layla by the side of the road.
"I'm not leaving them," she'd said, her voice flat with resolve.
He'd pressed, thinking of the sheer logistics.
"The chickens? Every single goat?" Her only answer had been a glare and a sharp, "Did I stutter? " That had settled that.
The second trailer held everything else they could possibly salvage—feed, hay, tack, tools, fencing supplies, buckets, seed, veterinary supplies, blankets, harnesses, a small mountain of gardening equipment, and several boxes of family belongings Josie and Liz couldn't bear to abandon.
Anything that might contribute to the settlement at Cara's cabin packed in until the trailer's tires bulged and the frame sank low.
They'd pulled out before sunrise. Josie had cried when they rolled through the gate for the last time. Liz hadn't looked back at all, and Seth suspected that had been the only way she could manage to leave.
Hours later, mountains stretched endlessly, snow-covered pines crowding a silent highway. Sunlight glinted off ice patches, the only sounds the engine and the occasional shift of a horse in the trailer. Quiet shattered with a single, bloodcurdling scream.
"That's Pickles!" Layla announced, perking up.
Seth glanced at Josie. "Of course there's one named Pickles."
"Don't judge him."
"I'm not judging the goat."
"You're judging the goat."
"I'm judging the person who named him Pickles."
"I named him," a voice declared from the backseat.
Seth winced as Josie burst out laughing.
"Well..." he recalibrated rapidly, catching Layla's eye in the mirror. "Pickles is an excellent name."
Layla's eyes narrowed with deep suspicion. "You were judging him."
"Never."
"You were."
"Prove it."
Another giggle earned Seth's smile as he returned his attention to the road.
Despite exhaustion weighing on him, despite fear still coiled beneath his ribs, this drive carried something strangely good.
The ranch ceased to be a home the moment the stranger's warning left his lips—more people knew about it, and more people coming.
Staying meant patiently waiting for the next attack, so they made the only decision available: packed three generations of a family's life into two vehicles and two horse trailers, and headed east. Toward Cara.
Toward Jay. Toward Sawyer and Addy. Toward whatever came next.
Seth glanced at Josie. "Addy's going to be tickled pink when she sees all these goats."
"The pregnant one?"
"Yeah." A smile tugged at his mouth as the memory surfaced. "She wanted to steal a goat last fall."
Josie's eyebrows rose. "Steal one?"
"Technically, she called it rescuing."
"Did the goat appear in danger?"
"No."
"Starving?"
"No."
"Injured?"
"Nope."
Josie stared at him. "Then that's stealing, Seth."
"That's what I said."
"What did she say?"
"That the apocalypse had little room for laws."
Josie's laugh was bright and genuine. "Okay. I already like her."
"Oh, you will." Seth shook his head at the memory. "We came back from a supply run, middle of nowhere, and a goat standing in a field."
"Just one?"
"A couple of them."
"And Addy wanted one."
"Addy wanted all of them."
Josie laughed harder. "Of course she did."
"Sawyer had to physically stop her from opening the gate."
"No."
"Swear to God."
"So what is her plan, exactly?"
"There wasn't one."
"That's not true," Layla said from the back.
Both adults glanced toward the rearview mirror.
"What?" Seth asked.
"She would've put them in the car."
A fresh wave of laughter shook Josie while Seth stared at Layla through the mirror with genuine alarm.
"Do not give Addy ideas."
"I haven't even met her."
"Keep it that way."
"Is she funny?"
Seth smiled. "Yeah."
"Will she like me?"
The question arrived so innocently that his chest tightened around it. He met Layla's eyes in the mirror and held them.
"She's going to love you. She used to be a school teacher and she’s going to love having a kid to teach.”
Layla seemed satisfied. "What about the goats?"
"Unfortunately..." Seth looked toward Josie. "She's probably going to love them more than all of us combined."
Another goat screamed from the trailer, and Josie leaned toward the side mirror.
"That one sounds angry."
"They're all angry."
"They've been in a trailer for hours."
"They're goats."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't trust anything that can escape that much.”
Josie stared at him. "You've fought infected people who tried to eat you."
"Exactly."
"And goats scare you?"
"I didn't say scare."
"You implied it."
"They're unsettling."
Layla giggled from her nest of blankets. "Seth's scared of Pickles."
"I am not scared of Pickles."
"Pickles is tiny."
"That's how they get you."
Josie laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
Seth's gaze lingered, his hands tight on the wheel.
It wasn't her beauty, though that always ambushed him; it was the sound itself.
How could she laugh like that after yesterday—dragged through the woods, her home abandoned, nearly everything lost?
He watched the tears spill down her cheeks and felt a profound shift in his chest. She could still throw her head back and laugh, and the fact that she could felt more important than anything else in the world.
Josie caught him looking. "What?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
Her eyes narrowed. "That definitely counted as something."
Seth reached across the center console and held out his hand. After a moment, she slipped hers into it, and he intertwined their fingers, his thumb tracing slowly across her knuckles.
"Glad you're here."
The humor faded from her expression into something warmer and quieter, and she squeezed his hand. "Me too."
They drove like that for several miles—his hand wrapped around hers, Layla humming tunelessly from the backseat, Liz's truck following faithfully behind them, two trailers carrying the remains of an entire family's life toward an uncertain future.
"How much longer?"
Seth closed his eyes briefly while Josie burst out laughing beside him.
"Your turn," he muttered.
She twisted around in her seat. "Not long, baby."
Seth shot her a triumphant look. "See?"
Josie rolled her eyes. "Don't."
"I told you."
"Drive the truck, Seth."
He grinned. "Yes, ma'am."
Behind them, Pickles screamed again.
The End